Chapters:

Twitch set the picture of the smiling couple in her bag. They
were long dead and she still wondered why she even bothered to
keep it. They had died when she was eight, and she hadn't gotten
along with them even before that. She was different than everyone
she'd ever met. Unlike her parents she was capable of changing
her appearance at will, something that her parents had feared
because they had said it was extremely rare.

Twitch's Hold mother came in by herself. Twitch was the only one
in this room. Over the years the other kids had moved off to
different rooms as they had been accepted as workers. She'd never
been allowed to since she wasn't born of the Hold. She was barely
5' 3", and at twelve years of age she was full grown, a good two
heads shorter than the other Hold children. There were sixteen
Hold children aside from her going to school this year.

Twitch, though raised for the last year or so in Hold Nair, was
born to Hold Link. Hold Link had been destroyed during a
hurricane three years earlier. The surviving Holdlings had been
split up among the other Holds. Hold Link had been converted to
training ground in the years since. "It's time to go Twitch. The
portals are going to close in a bit." She nodded and picked up
her two bags, one of clothes and the few belongings she had, the
other contained her school books. She moved past the Hold mother
and into the hall. She jumped the stairs to the ground floor and
was ushered through the portal just as it was closing.

When she came out she fell into one of the other students. It was
Flare, from Hold Nair. "Hey, Twitch, get up hurry. You've got to
see this." He lifted her up onto his shoulders. He stood at just
over six and a half feet, well out of her range of sight. She
nearly fell off as she did a quick look around her. The hall they
were in was packed with a lot of kids from varying years,
anything from first years such as herself to 9th years taking
their last year of various training.

"Twitch, see that Guard over there? Click said he's teaching
Elemental Control for first years. Says he's a High Elemental."
She looked over at the Guard he was pointing to. He was a little
over five and a half feet tall, closer to six, with ice blue hair
and amber colored eyes. When he caught sight of her on Flare's
shoulders he almost motioned for her to get down before he
realized just how small she was, and apparently took pity on her.
She pulled lightly on Flare's red hair and was met by his
green-gray eyes. "What?" "What are they doing up there?" She
pointed to the front of the line they were in. "Oh, sorting us
into groups by our aura color, something to do with teaching us.
I hope I'm in with either you or Tank."

She nodded. Despite Flare's name he was a water elemental and
would probably end up with Tank. Her friendship with Flare was
odd on its own, her short him not, if not for the fact that she
was a Fire/Air elemental on top of it, while he was a water
elemental. They were supposed to be opposites, and therefore not
get along well, but they were just the opposite, being friends
ever since they first met.

She looked ahead of them as an adult supervisor walked up to
them. "You need to get down." She sighed as Flare flipped her
around into a cradle hold then set her down on her feet. The
supervisor moved down the line breaking up groups and forming a
straighter line than the one that had formed on its own. Flare
had set her in front of him so that she could see what was going
on as the older students were ushered out of the room. He seemed
nervous behind her.

"Do you think the tests they are supposed to do on us is going to
hurt?" She looked up at him, craning her neck back almost
painfully. "If it hurt why would your mom send you here?" His mom
never even let him climb a tree if she thought he would get hurt.
He smiled and looked back in front of them. Another
Teacher/Supervisor was going down the line.

He stopped every once in a while and sent students through a door
on the far right, the last one in that direction. When Twitch saw
Tank and Spaz get sent through she knew the guy must be the Water
Master. He stopped in front of them and even he had to look up to
see Flare's eyes. "You go to the room on the very end with the
rest of them." He looked down at her with an odd expression and
kept going.

The next Master to go by was the Earth Master, he moved just as
quickly as the first and gave her a similar look when he passed
her, as if he wasn't quite sure what she was.

Twitch was used to being stared at, but this was getting kind of
annoying. The last three other Masters passed along the
deminishing lines and left until only her and a set of twins were
left. The twins didn't seem at all worried about being left
behind. They seemed to have been expecting it for some reason.
Two guards came in as the doors closed to the last room. One was
holding a clipboard which most likely held a list of some sort.
He looked up at the twins and marked them off, but looked
confused when he spotted her.

He walked over to her while pulling something out of his pocket,
it was a stone of some sort. She watched it warily as the light
held within it flickered kind of 'merrily' for lack of a better
word. He stopped just in front of her. "Hold out your hand." She
did as she was told and he placed the stone in the center of her
palm, it immediately flared as bright as a star and shifted the
colors under its glassy surface until it resembled a
kaledoscope(?), and then it stopped. The guard looked down at the
color, even more confused. He motioned one of the twins over and
placed it in the boys palm, his sister watching from a distance.
It turned a mixture of all the possible colors of an elementals
aura and then remained a mix of them. He placed it back in her
palm and it went back to the kaliedoscope.

The guard touched a portal along one wall. A misty image appeared
that she couldn't make out. "We need your help over here." The
image blinked out and the portal lit up.

Twitch watched as the tall figure stepped out of the portal. He
was at least a master, but the power coming off of him would have
you believe that he was even higher. There was no plataeu feeling
to his power, no since of a limit. He had gold hair and ice-blue
eyes. They made her own pale gray eyes seem warm in comparison.
His power reached out into the room as he approached their small
group.

She felt the same blue color pool into her own eyes as his power
finally touched her own. She felt her power reach out to shove
his back but if felt as if it tangled with it instead. The
resulting chaotic uprising of energy spilled out into the room as
sparks of multicolored light to swirl in the air and around the
room. The twins and the two guards shivered as it brushed past
and through them. the newcomer gently pulled his own power back
into his center, and she mimiced him, feeling as if she was
pulling apart taffy, each retaining a small piece of the others
power.

She immediately felt the cool ice that seemed to radiate from him
settle into her core. His eyes lost a touch of their coldness as
her own fire settled into his center. "What do you need help
with?" He was speaking to the guard but watching her. The guard
set the stone back into her palm and it returned to its
multicolored dance. The newcomer glanced down at it then back up.
"I don't see what the problem is. The stone isn't broken and
she's clearly one of ours. I'm supposed to come and check if the
twins have come along as we expected; though how you missed her
in the searches I can't comprehend."

The guards shifted on their feet as if ashamed of something. They
led the twins back through the portal and the new male motioned
her ahead of him. She gave him a wary look but passed into the
portal. Unlike the one that brought her to the school, this one
seemed to attach itself to her aura. The strange male gave her a
light shove to break the hold. She stumbled out but kept her
balance. The portal closed.

She looked around to see that they were in another wide hall.
This one looked much older and seemed to be built of some dark
stone that was as cold and reflecting as polished obsidian. She
immediately sensed the age of the hall settle into her bones. She
knew in some dark corner of her mind that they were no longer on
the same plane as they had been. A door opened down the hall and
she looked straight into the eyes of a Daione Sidhe.

The Fae warrior was standing only a few yards away and regarding
their group curiously. "So these are the new recruits you've
discovered. I wonder which one or ones will survive the training.
Take them to their quarters. The Queen will wish to meet them
shortly." Within that cryptic statement they were led down
another dark hall.

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Sorry, having some major problems with Booksie and adding
chapters, so I'm just going to keep adding to this one. Sorry!